Pawnee County

By Clyda Reeves-Franks

Pawnee County is unique among Oklahoma's counties. It represents a microcosm of the state's culture and heritage. Like Oklahoma, Pawnee County is divided in half by the cross timbers: to the east are woodlands and lakes, and to the west are the short grass country and the Great Plains. The eastern half of the county was a part of old Oklahoma Territory and is filled with lake homes that serve as a bedroom community for Tulsa, while the legacy of the Wild West lives in western Pawnee County, home of the Pawnee Bill Memorial Rodeo. A vibrant agriculture and cattle economy made the county an economic center of the Oklahoma Territory. Then came oil and a rush of fortune seekers. Thousands of wells produced millions of dollars in black gold, as tens of thousands of oilmen rushed to the region, along with gamblers, con men, prostitutes, bootleggers, and other ne'er-do-wells. From this colorful legacy, modern Pawnee County emerged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Aug 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781439653418

Clyda Reeves-Franks

Clyda R. Franks is a lifelong resident of Pawnee County and the author of numerous titles relating to local and state history. Most of the photographs for Images of America: Pawnee County were culled from her personal collection, the Pawnee County Historical Society, and the Oklahoma Historical Society.

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Franks.

INTRODUCTION

Pawnee County straddles the boundary between lush eastern Oklahoma and arid western Oklahoma, an area of transition between the hilly, forested East, and the flatter grasslands of the West. Thus it is a boundary between two distinctive zones of vegetation. Likewise, it is a border zone between forest and prairie animal life. These geographical circumstances played a major role in the history of the region and its pattern of settlement. It represents a microcosm of the state’s culture and heritage.

Pawnee County’s history begins with the arrival of the Clovis people, among the earliest to settle in North America around 12,500 years ago; these were followed by the Folsom Bison Hunters, who lived off the huge prehistoric bison herds that roamed the region. About 2,000 years ago, these primitive people gave way to more permanent cultures that built huge mounds and developed an extensive trade network up and down the Arkansas River.

Occupying the area between the Osage Hills on the east and the Osage Plains on the west, the area quickly became a major hunting area for early tribes. Archaeological excavations around Pawnee Lake revealed 900-year-old campsites. Among these early tribes were the Wichitas, who were forced southward with the arrival of the Osages.

Then came the Cherokees, who first crossed the Mississippi River into Oklahoma in the late 1770s and established themselves as the Western Cherokees. By 1805, the Cherokees and Osages were contesting the hunting land along the Arkansas River. War broke out in 1817, and the Osages were defeated at the Battle of the Strawberry Moon. In 1825, the Osages ceded what later became Pawnee County and their other land along the Arkansas River, and in 1835 the Cherokee Nation East agreed to join their brethren in the west. The Treaty of New Echota also guaranteed the Cherokees a perpetual outlet to the buffalo grounds to the west. Known as the Cherokee Outlet, it included the area of Pawnee County.

In 1832, an American expedition of mounted rangers marched through Pawnee County to contact the Plains tribes. Accompanying the troops were four civilians—Washington Irving, Henry Ellsworth, Albert-Alexandre de Pourtales, and Charles Latrobe. Irving’s colorful book, A Tour on the Prairies, published in 1835, was the first original account of Pawnee County to appear in print. Bear’s Glen in eastern Pawnee County was named by Irving.

In 1831, the Reverend Isaac McCoy was appointed to survey the Cherokee-Creek boundary, and 1st Lt. James L. Dawson commanded the military escort that accompanied McCoy. Dawson marked a crude road along the Osage Trace to a natural ford over the Arkansas River near Keystone in Pawnee County. Dawson named the ford US Ford, and it became a major crossing point on the river.

In 1843, Capt. Nathan Boone led an expedition through Pawnee County along the divide between Harper and Black Bear Creeks. He described the country as broken timber post oak and blackjack openings, and prairie, the soil sandy. Boone continued on, passing near Skedee and Watchorn.

During the Civil War, the Cherokees sided with the Confederacy. The only military action in Pawnee County was the withdrawal of the pro-Northern Creek under Opothleyahola, who fled the Southern troops for safety in Kansas. Most historians believe the Battle of Round Mountain, fought on November 19, 1861, took place between the Cimarron River and the southern border of Pawnee County. It was a running fight that spread over several miles. During the fighting, Opothleyahola’s followers forded the Arkansas River at US Crossing into Pawnee County and fled westward to Hell Roaring Creek and then north toward Kansas. The Battle of Round Mountain was the first Civil War battle in Oklahoma.

When the South, along with the Cherokees, was defeated by the Union in the Civil War, the federal government demanded a new treaty with the Indians. The Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866 demanded that the Cherokees agree to the settlement of other tribes on land ceded by the Indians. In 1874, the Pawnee surrendered their homelands in Nebraska for another reservation in Pawnee County. Their new home was near the junction of Black Bear Creek and the Arkansas River in central Pawnee County west of present highway OK 99. An agency was opened on the east side of Black Bear Creek at the present-day town of Pawnee.

In 1891, the Pawnees were forced to accept individual allotments. Every tribal member over the age of 18 received 160 acres anywhere within the reservation. Those under 18 were granted 160-acre allotments chosen by their parents. Surplus land was sold to the government for $1.25 an acre and opened to homesteaders with the opening of the Cherokee Outlet in 1893.

The Cherokees retained ownership of that part of Pawnee County east of OK 99, which remained a part of the Cherokee Outlet. The outlet was eventually leased to the Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association in 1883 and used to graze cattle before shipping them to market in Kansas. The lease agreement continued in force until 1892, when the government refused to allow it to be renewed. The Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association offered to purchase the outlet for $3 an acre, but the government refused to allow the Cherokees to sell. The government eventually purchased the outlet for $1.25 an acre and opened it to homesteaders in 1893.

The Otoes originated along the western Great Lakes and migrated south to the junction of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. In 1855, they were concentrated on a reservation along the Kansas-Nebraska border and in 1881 moved to a new reservation in the Cherokee Outlet. The reservation was partially in far western Pawnee County, west of Township 2 East. With the passage of the Dawes Act of 1887, the policy of the government was to force allotment of tribal lands and open any land that remained to homesteaders. In 1891, a special allotting agent was appointed to the Otoes and in 1894 their reservation was divided into individual allotments. With the allotment of Indian land and the opening of the area to homesteaders came the transformation of the region from public land to private property. Oklahoma Territory had been created in 1890, and once the Indian title to what became Pawnee County had been extinguished, the region was added to Oklahoma Territory as Q County. Later, the county name was changed to Pawnee.

The vibrant agriculture and cattle economy in early Pawnee County soon made the region an economic center of Oklahoma Territory, especially with